It is a frequent occurrence that a patient does not properly take his or her medication as prescribed by his or her physician. This is especially true for elderly patients who must take several different medications at various times throughout the day. The problem has been especially serious when the patient has impaired eyesight and/or is confused. The problem manifests itself in various ways, such as (1) failure to take the medication, (2) taking the wrong medication (3) taking too much of, or too little of, the correct medication, and (4) taking the medication at an incorrect time.
Patents have issued in the past for portable medication devices which give a signal at the time medication is to be taken. Wirtschafter, U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,408 is one such patent. It also discloses a squelch circuit for turning off the signal at night. None of the patents, however, have any satisfactory arrangement for turning off the signal at night when it is not needed and automatically turning the singal back on early the next day.